


Stupid

by crown_of_weeds



Series: Human Of The Year [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Ableism, Canon Disabled Character, Developmental Disability, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crown_of_weeds/pseuds/crown_of_weeds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short little ficlet inspired by the scene in "Rumors" where Artie calls Brittany stupid. Nothing special, barely even a touch of angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stupid

**Title:** Stupid  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **What is it?** A short little ficlet inspired by the scene in "Rumors" where Artie calls Brittany stupid. Nothing special, barely even a touch of angst.

*****

This is the story of how Brittany grew up.

Brittany was never someone who expected much. She wanted her breakfast to be more consistent than it was, true--salty or sweet, not that complicated, mom--but she had a place to dance every day, and she had a half-robot boyfriend plus a best friend with some pretty impressive benefits, and, for a while, she had a magic comb. It was a pretty sweet deal, and even Lord Tubbington agreed that things really couldn’t improve much from there.

Which meant, of course, that they could only get harder. 

In retrospect, her magic comb being something dusty and broken off the floor should have been a significant warning, but Brittany didn’t like to think that way. They still tied at Sectionals, clearly  something was working. She bet Kurt had a magic comb, too--god knew he had enough, one of them had to be enchanted--and that was why they didn’t just win outright. That backflip had been awesome. It was funny, too--Artie went to all of that trouble over a magic comb, and then Santa brought him his own version, except his let him walk.

Maybe she should have paid more attention when Artie kissed her on the cheek and asked her if he could keep the machine in her car. He didn’t want to bring it home, not for Christmas, he said, and then he never asked for it back and eventually she turned it into an obstacle course for Lord Tubbington. She did wonder, mopping gallons of slushie off of Artie while Rachel and Puck sang about  needing you now , why everyone had taken to singing such grown-up songs lately.  She’d much preferred  Valarie . 

Being a zombie was a lot of fun though. Enough fun to make her forget about the resigned way Quinn had said she’s get Mr. Shuester to handle this, enough fun to make her forget about almost dying,  Dance ‘til your dead . She was good at that.

To be honest, Brittany was never quite sure what exactly made a person grown-up. When she got her period her mom told her she was a woman now, but twelve seemed a little young and she didn’t even have boobs yet. Boobs seemed like an important element. She had them now, of course, everyone did except Rachel. Santana had even made hers bigger. For some reason, though, that seemed to have made Santana younger. 

Kurt, though. Kurt had gotten a lot older really fast. So maybe, maybe the trick to being a grown-up wasn’t boobs or bleeding, but being brave.

Brittany wasn’t very brave at all, so she figured she didn’t have anything to worry about. She could stay a kid forever.

*****

  
Brittany would have happily stayed a scared little kid forever, but everyone else started being brave and it turned out to be contagious. Maybe it was Kurt’s fault, but he was at Dalton and not, as far as she knew, a wizard, so that didn’t make sense. Probably it was Rachel’s, insisting on writing songs and then singing about  getting it right and sounding so old. Everything seemed to change after she got her gold star.

Brittany was surprised to find she liked it.

Santana had started being brave a little while ago, and then she had stood up to Karofsky all by herself at the benefit. That was brave, and she didn’t look so lost anymore. Mercedes had sung a beautiful song and sounded less like a bratty girl and more like the diva she was always taking about. Rachel, Rachel didn’t seem to be able to  stop being brave, facing down the wrath of a Ms. Jones who wanted her puppy and giving up her solos as if she’ll still be able to sing without them. 

Brittany supposed all the bravery went to her head, which was why she made a t-shirt with her least favorite word for  Born This Way , and another one she thought Santana would love. She knew Rachel was getting a nose job, and then she found out that Quinn had already had one, and those should have been warnings but by then it was too late and she was high on courage and so completely unprepared for Santana being a kid again. 

Brittany got mad.

She hadn’t know that was allowed.

*****

  
Birth is a painful surprise, and thus bravery is more about being surprised by life and yourself than anything else. So perhaps it was fitting that Brittany was surprised to realize she’d grown up. 

The moment it happened was a haze, a blur: colors bleeding together, everything moving just barely too fast, clanging lockers, hushing footsteps, her backpack heavy on her back and her sweater itching at her shoulders where the straps pressed it in. Artie was squinting up through his glasses, his voice insistent and his eyes sharp, and then it had cut through everything else:

“....so  stupid Brittany?”

*****

  
If there is only one person, including teachers, in your entire high school who’s never called you  stupid before, even when you talk about Santa and storks and magic combs, then perhaps you forget to be careful and just start to be comfortable until one day, it happens. One day you realize that the moment you forgot to be scared, nowhere was safe.  

The moment Brittany grew up wasn’t the moment the last person left wrote her off. The moment Brittany grew up came when she didn’t know what else to do, when her world sped up and slowed down all at once as Artie looked almost horrified and her face crumpled in and she surprised herself, surprised Artie, surprised everyone by standing up for herself.

This is the story of how Brittany grew up: she was scared; she got hurt. She took what she could get; she got hurt. She learned how to hurt people; she got hurt. She was brave; then she was brave for someone else.

It turned out there was nothing stupid about that.


End file.
